Dozens of men who had been participating in a substance-abuse program in jail in Salt Lake County haven’t received that treatment since being moved elsewhere last week as part of a what’s been described as a temporary disruption caused by ‘Operation Rio Grande,’ a county councilman said.
Hours after launching the operation to rid the Rio Grande neighborhood of criminals, state leaders had given assurances Monday that they’d found a way to move forward without hampering the treatment program. An Aug. 9 email showed the program was in jeopardy of being cut in half due to jail-inmate shifts made ahead of the operation.
But after a frantic lead-up to the operation’s launch, treatment through a program known as CATS has been temporarily halted, according to Salt Lake County Council members.
“As of today, any of those male CATS inmates that we moved to Davis County have not received any of their treatment since last week,” Councilman Arlyn Bradshaw said. “That’s fairly alarming to me.”
The leaders behind the operation called the halt temporary, and said inmates in the program would be able to complete it.
Still, the council approved a motion to affirm its support of treatment programs and asked that the participating inmates receive treatment soon.
“I’d like to make a motion that the council make clear that it is our intent that the CATS program be returned to Salt Lake County and returned to its full capacity as quickly as possible,” Bradshaw said. The motion passed unanimously.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill called the CATS program “one of the most successful programs that we do have.”
Gill noted that treatment through programs like CATS help make residents eligible for coverage under a not-yet approved plan to expand Medicaid to help very low-income Utahns. Funding from that proposed expansion has emerged as a central component for expanding treatment options under the Operation Rio Grande strategy.
Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams on Tuesday described it as a “pipeline for access to Medicaid,” and said everyone involved in Operation Rio Grande is committed to preserving the program.
The pause in treatment occurred after the state worked quickly to free up jail bed space in the county in the days before the operation, which leaders said was a three-phase, long-term plan that in part relies on expanding treatment options.
The county initially planned to contract with Utah County, which had enough jail space to house every inmate in the CATS program and ensure treatment would go on uninterrupted. But state leaders and a group that worked to find beds quickly pulled the plug on the Utah County plan and instead worked with other counties, including Davis and Weber.
During serial visits to Salt Lake area media outlets on Monday, the heads of the operation said they became aware of the possibility of treatment disruption last week and figured out a way to avoid it.
“We were given communication last week that there would be reductions to the CATS program,” McAdams told The Tribune‘s editorial board. “[House Speaker Greg Hughes] and I found out about that and said that’s not acceptable, there can’t be any impacts to the CATS program.”
Instead, they attributed even the talk of a possible disruption as a breakdown in communication during very fast-paced work.
“When you’re scrambling under the pressure downstream to get those beds, you might not have caught that vision,” Hughes said. “There might have been that communication gap that occurred.”
“That’s all it was, was just a communication gap,” Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox added. “The brakes were put on, everybody got back together. We made sure the CATS program was intact.”
On Tuesday, though, after an update for the County Council about jail beds was canceled, the council unanimously approved Bradshaw’s motion in support of the CATS program and in resuming treatment as quickly as possible.
“We definitely have a bipartisan philosophy when it comes to treatment,” Bradshaw said. “If [halting treatment] had ever been presented to the council ... we would not have approved it.”
Deputy Mayor Erin Litvack noted McAdams was “100 percent supportive” of the statement and commitment to return inmates in the program to Salt Lake County.
“Our goal is to do that within the week,” Litvack said. “We feel very strongly that the CATS program should be protective.”
McAdams and Cox told The Tribune on Tuesday the gap in treatment was expected.
“Every one of them will be able to finish in the CATS program,” Cox said. “There was never any intention of eliminating any of that. It’s critical to what we were doing.”
Rather than cutting treatment capacity, McAdams said it will continue unhampered while he and others continue looking for more beds in coming months with help from the state.
“The long-term goal is to make sure that we have no reduction in treatment in that program and that it’s ongoing,” McAdams said.
— Reporter Matthew Piper contributed to this report.
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